Research Fellow named Rising Star at Celebrating Excellence Awards Ceremony

Dr Sophie Legge, a Research Fellow at the Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics (CNGG) has received the Rising Star award at Cardiff University’s Celebrating Excellence awards.

The Celebrating Excellence awards takes place annually and recognises individuals, teams and the collaborative achievements of staff across the university. The Rising Star award is given to an Early Career Academic who shows exemplary qualities as a colleague, collaborator and professional, including their commitment to research.

Dr Antonio Pardiñas, a Reader at the CNGG nominated Sophie for her outstanding work to improve the diversity of schizophrenia research. Commenting on her enormous success, he said, “[Sophie] is driven by the core belief that science should and must improve the lives of those affected by severe mental illness. She is a leader and gives her time freely to colleagues who need it.

Sophie has been a member of the Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences at Cardiff University since 2013. Since completing her PhD 2016, Sophie has led and contributed to several projects aiming to better understand the causes of psychosis. In 2022, Sophie became the Data Intake Officer for the Schizophrenia Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC), an international initiative of several hundred research groups.

She is now the deputy lead of the newly funded UKRI Brain and Genomics Mental Health Research Platform Hub which aims to advance the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of severe mental illness.

Reflecting on her achievements, Sophie said, "I’m truly honoured and moved to receive this award. While I am grateful for this recognition, this award is a reflection of the incredible psychosis research team at CNGG that I have the privilege of working with. None of my achievements would have been possible without the unwavering support, collaboration, encouragement and friendship from past and current colleagues.

I would like to thank in particular Dr Antonio Pardiñas and Professors James Walters, Michael O’Donovan and Michael Owen for their mentorship.”

• Read more about Dr Sophie Legge’s exciting achievement
• Learn more about the UKRI Brain and Genomics Mental Health Research Platform Hub